“Toby Ord shouldn’t seek to influence policy” is not the message I get from that paragraph, fwiw.
It comes across to me as “Toby Ord and other techno-optimists already have policy influence [and so it’s especially important for people who care about the long-term future to fund researchers from other viewpoints as well].”
I’m obviously not the authors; maybe they did mean to say that you and Toby Ord should stop trying to influence policy. But that wasn’t my first impression.
“Toby Ord shouldn’t seek to influence policy” is not the message I get from that paragraph, fwiw.
It comes across to me as “Toby Ord and other techno-optimists already have policy influence [and so it’s especially important for people who care about the long-term future to fund researchers from other viewpoints as well].”
I’m obviously not the authors; maybe they did mean to say that you and Toby Ord should stop trying to influence policy. But that wasn’t my first impression.
That wasn’t how I interpreted it but perhaps I am an outlier given the voting on this comment.